Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed the joint statement signed by US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore as a first step in the denuclearisation of North Korea.

“We see this as a step in a comprehensive resolution,” Abe said in Tokyo after he spoke by phone with Trump.

Japan wants North Korea to agree to a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation. In the joint statement Kim committed North Korea “to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.

Abe added that he “would like to thank the president (Trump) for raising the abduction issue,” referring to Japan’s demand that Pyongyang release any remaining Japanese people it abducted to train its spies.

“I’m determined that Japan will have to directly face North Korea and resolve (the abduction issue) bilaterally.”

Tokyo has long sought to return its nationals kidnapped by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I brought it up absolutely and they are going to be working on that,” Trump said at a news conference following his historic summit with Kim, when asked whether the abduction issue came up during their meeting.